Countdown

31 July, 2009

You’ve probably seen the ads on TV or heard them on the radio, they are pretty hard to miss. The ones that say you can turn in your old gas guzzeling car and get $4500 towards the purchase of a new, more fuel efficient car.

On the surface, it sounds pretty good. You get a huge discount towards the cost of a new car.

But where does the money come from? It is another example of the re-distrabution of weath this Administratoin is hell-bent on ramming down our throats.

And, it’s not even related to the huge stimlus plan that we didn’t have any say on..

The ‘Car Allowance Rebate System’ or CARS program is nicknamed “Cash for Clunkers” went into effect last week, and has been very popular. People have been pouring into showrooms to take advantage of the free money from other people’s taxes.

In fact, it’s been so popular, that the alocated funds are dangerously close to running out. It had been slated to last until November (or until the money ran out). No one anticipated it would run out in a week.

This presents a number of concerns. There is currently a backlog of requests from dealerships requesting the money for the cars they have already sold. Many dealers are concerned that they will not get the full rebate for all of the ‘clunkers’ that they have taken in as trades. Another is should this program be continued, where would the money come from? It has been suggested that we tap into the yet unspent Stimulus money (the question that raises for me, if it was so imparative that it pass as quickly as it did, why is it still unspent all of these months later?)

*** This just in... The House has approved an additional $2b of your tax dollars for the 'Cash for Clunkers' program ***